International Falls hasn’t had an amateur baseball team since the early 1960s. That will change this summer as a team of both American and Canadian players comes together to form the Rainy Lake North Stars.
Dieter Humbert is among those spearheading the effort, he says amateur baseball has been a big deal in Minnesota for as long as he remembers.
“In Minnesota, amateur baseball is real big, especially where I’m from originally in central Minnesota,” Humbert said. “And, you know, almost every town has a baseball team, no matter if they have a population of 100 or 1000 or bigger. But most of the towns are pretty small. A lot of rural farm kids, you know, they kind of all grow up wanting to play on their hometown baseball team. I grew up around that.”
Humbert says there was a team that played out of International Falls, called the Mandos sponsored by the mill at that time called after the company that owned the mill, Mando.
Humbert has always been a baseball fan despite playing more basketball and running track, growing up. But once he had kids of his own, they were involved in baseball and he helped coach.
“My youngest son played on an amateur team in Roseau (about two hours west of Fort Frances and International Falls) last year and I got to watch a lot of the games,” said Humbert. “And I thought ‘why don’t we have something like this in International Falls?’ So I came back and did a poll.”
Because they have the ability of drawing from a large area they can dip into Canada.
“We actually get a 45 mile to 75 mile radius that we can draw players from,” Humbert said. “So I called up a buddy of mine that helped, John DeGagne. I asked him who would be some players around Fort that maybe play fastpitch and he gave me some names.”
As of right now they’ve pulled in three Rainy River District players from the fastpitch community in Vaughan Wilson, Ryder Woolsey and Jaden Gustafson.
The team will play against teams from Warroad, Roseau, Bemidji and Hibbing.
The home games will come in the form of a series of four double headers played in International Falls. Starting on June first the committee has planned a series of themes for each of the four game days. On June 1 they plan to celebrate a homecoming of sorts for all baseball players young and old from International Falls Humbert is hoping to see some of the old Mandos players as well as plenty of former International Falls High School Broncos baseball players.
The next home games will be on June 16 and will be a celebration of cancer survivors. On July 7 they will host Charitable Excellence Recognition day which will recognize service clubs and volunteers from around the area. Their last home games will take place on July 21 will be a day to honour veterans.
The double headers will start at 12 with game one with the second game following right after.
The team is in the process of fundraising to pay field rental fees, for equipment and travel. They have already held a bingo and there will be more fundraisers as the season draws nearer.
For more information check out the Rainy Lake North Stars Facebook page.
